Orienteering race 2:25:30 [3] 9.6 km (15:09 / km) +365m 12:44 / km
shoes: Inov 340 Pair #1
One of the races I have come to love. Generally, my race was not really fast. The control placements were good and it was interesting to try to figure the best approaches (e.g., #10 surrounded in a deep valley with dark green on the 3 probably approach sides). I was too tentative and was not sure how much gas I needed to keep in the tank to finish the race. Even with pacing, I was pretty burnt by the end. Took both A splits. Controls 18 and 19 this year were not a nice surprise; two controls on completely white parts of the map -- no, really white meaning no features, no contours, no ink used for anything but the control circle. Found 18 with Dave W, but I had skipped #14. This turned out to be a BIG mistake. Control 19 was at the bottom of a reentrant. Old ink imbedded in my clue sheet holder had me run to the east side of the valley (tight undergrowth), bail, and regroup. When I found the trail junction earlier missed and roughly counted distance, there were several reentrants in the area, so I ended up searching them one after the other (total time 16 minutes). A solid race to there and a fun day as long as I block 16 minutes from my mind.!
